


The Summons

by Vana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 06:25:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2458151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melisandre summons the strength of her god to save the life of the Princess at the Wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Summons

The cold emanated from the girl’s body, so frigid that even Melisandre felt it creeping toward her, cloaked as she was in R’hllor’s warmth that lit her from within.

Princess Shireen lay on the bed, the covers crackling with frost, the parents standing side by side on the other side of the chamber — not touching, not looking at one another — the disfigured side of the face gone to stone and the clear side turning a sickly bluish-white.  
  
Queen Selyse stared into the fire. King Stannis glared out the window, into the blustering snow and winds. Devan Seaworth was the only one to look at Melisandre, into her face, pleading with brown eyes that threatened to overflow with tears. _He’s half in love with me_ , the priestess remembered saying with a laugh, a long time ago. _He’s half terrified of me_.  
  
She turned her gaze to the king.  
  
“Your Grace,” and her voice rang eerily in the silent chamber. “There may be a way.”  
  
“Then get on with it,” Stannis ground out. “You promise me miracles, you promise me the end of the Others. You promise me my throne. How can you make these claims when your god is unable to save my child?”  
  
“The Lord of Light has a use for the princess,” Melisandre said, soothing, quieter. This calmed Devan, but on Stannis it had little effect, and Selyse hardly seemed to hear. “R’hllor may honor her and save her, through me.”  
  
“But?”   
  
“Yes, my queen?” asked Melisandre, surprised she had spoken.  
  
“There’s always a ‘but,’” Selyse went on, quietly, sadly. “R’hllor may save her. But…?”  
  
“Don’t borrow trouble, woman,” Stannis warned.  
  
“The queen is right.”

Stannis’ eyes snapped to Melisandre’s face then, but Selyse, still, looked into the flames.

“If the Lord of Light sees fit to save the princess, he may take my life in her stead. He may take neither. He may take both.”  
  
The weight of this settled on the four — five — even seeming to further weigh down the lifeless Shireen. Was her skin greying as they spoke? Was her young heart slowing?  
  
For once, Stannis had no answer. Selyse did not even attempt one. Devan looked stunned, horror etched on his young features.  
  
The priestess knew what she must do. She approached the king and laid a hand on his cold cheek.  
  
“Oh, Stannis,” she said. The tenderness she felt for this man, and his wife — whether royalty or peasant, she had seen much of the suffering parents of a dying child — was so acute it was almost painful. “This is not your decision to make.”  
  
Melisandre let their skin join for one beat — soft against craggy, heat against ice — and then she went to the girl.  
  
Shireen was so still, she did not even shiver. Melisandre leaned toward her, closing her eyes, remembering. She fell into the past as if into a sea, or a well with no bottom.

  
  
—  
  


Years ago, the beatings had begun. They were so harsh the girl fainted, air coming too slowly, breath too heavy, body somehow lighter than the sun and burning just as vividly.  
  
Years ago, the priest’s eyebrows furrowed dangerously when she was brought in to him.  
  
“What have you done?” he asked, in a voice like thunder. But he was not speaking to her. He was angry, but it was not with her. She lay on the mat in the red room, bleeding out and shaking — shivering with the relief that while there was anger, while there was rage, it was not directed at _her_. Not this time.  
  
Years ago, that same priest had held her and bathed her wounds, salved her skin. “Melony,” he had said. “Let the Lord come into you.”  
  
“Yes,” she had whispered, at the very last outpost of life. “Anything.”  
  
Then he had kissed her, open-mouthed and loving, breathing.  
  
 _Are you my mother?_  
  
 _Are you my lover?_  
  
And Melisandre was born, gasping and crying, red and raw, into the light of R’hllor.

  
—

  
“Shireen Baratheon, the Lord of Light calls you now,” Melisandre whispered into Shireen’s open, frozen mouth. She tried to remember how it had felt for the priest to give her life. Like lightning, like fire, like frostbite in water. She closed her eyes and gathered all her warmth and all her devotion and breathed it into the girl. The flames of R’hllor and all his followers kindled and leapt into the air around them.  
  
She felt Shireen shudder, then fall still. _This battle is lost_ , the priestess thought. Then—  
  
 _Are you my mother, Melisandre?_  
  
 _Have I always been here?_  
  
“Father?”  
  
“Princess,” gasped Devan. Tears streamed down his cheeks and without hesitation he reached for Shireen’s hand and grasped it in both of his.  
  
Queen Selyse was still. Only her lip quivered.  
  
But Stannis was paralyzed, a father whose child was saved by a mystery, a man adrift without the truth he had held to, a king whose authority rested atop a temple he had never seen. He had called upon a god he did not believe in, and that god had answered. And now?  
  
“Your Grace,” said Melisandre, weak and hoarse. The fire was wavering before her, its smoke making her breath come hard. “I _must_ rest.”  
  
She fell to the bed, once again warm in the house of the Lord. She closed her eyes. With the kiss of her god on her lips, Melisandre slept.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written a few months ago as a response to a post in which someone said they'd be all right with Shireen being sacrificed to the flames if it would turn Stannis against Melisandre. I would prefer for nobody to wish Shireen dead, so I wrote this fix-it fic in which Mel actually saves her life.


End file.
